Bobs Worth’s in great form for Gold Cup, I couldn’t be any happier

 
4 March 2014

Barry Geraghty gave Nicky Henderson a landmark triumph when he rode Bobs Worth to Gold Cup success last year.

It meant Henderson, already the most successful trainer in Cheltenham Festival history, was able to celebrate his 50th winner at the meeting and Geraghty is hopeful of adding to that tally when he partners Bobs Worth again in that race a week on Friday.

The bookmakers have faith too making Bobs Worth the 7-4 favourite.

“I’m not sure you’d want to put your house on it,” Geraghty tells me with a laugh. “However, he has a great chance and is in great form.” We are speaking just as he has jumped 10 fences on the eight-year-old. “He felt great. He looks brilliant, too, so we couldn’t be any happier with the horse.”

Geraghty is the third most successful jockey at the Festival with 28 victories and he has had a winner every year since Moscow Flyer won the Arkle Challenge Trophy in 2002. A triumph next Friday would be Geraghty’s third Gold Cup and, while he has great affection for his first winner Kicking King in 2005, Bobs Worth is really special. “It is hard to say one horse is better than another but I owned Bobs Worth for three years as a young horse. Then Nicky bought him off me and I probably have more of a connection with him.”

Geraghty cannot claim such a close connection with Jezki, his ride in the Champion Hurdle, but he also has great hopes for the JP McManus horse. “I won on him four times last season. I schooled him the other morning over eight hurdles and he jumped really well.” However, Geraghty will have his work cut out as he will have to beat My Tent Or Yours, which is also owned by McManus. With Tony McCoy, McManus’s stable jockey, choosing My Tent Or Yours, it is clear which horse the champion jockey thinks is the more likely winner.

This is one of a number of races that will see the two Irishmen go head to head. In next Thursday’s JLT Novices’ Chase, Geraghty’s Oscar Whisky will be up against McCoy’s Taquin Du Seuil and Wednesday’s Queen Mother Champion Chase pits Geraghty’s Captain Conan against McCoy’s Kid Cassidy.

Geraghty would have loved to have ridden Sprinter Sacre in this race after guiding the horse to a 19-length victory in last year’s Champion Chase. The brilliant two-miler was pulled up at Kempton on December 27 with an irregular heart beat and Henderson has decided against bringing him to Cheltenham. “It was disappointing,” admits Geraghty. “Captain Conan is in the top three in the betting so has a big chance.”

This year, the organisers have tried to add extra spice to the traditional Cheltenham rivalry between Britain and Ireland. Since 1975, British trainers have got the better of their Irish counterparts, often by wide margins. This changed last year when the Irish edged ahead 14-13. And, just as in cricket, when the Ashes urn was created after an England defeat against Australia, this year the inaugural Prestbury Cup will be presented to whichever country gets to 14 wins first.

So does riding for the old Etonian Henderson mean divided loyalties for Geraghty? “In that sense I suppose I will be riding for Great Britain,” says Geraghty. “But I do not mind who wins provided I get my own share as well.”

Geraghty knows how one mistake can cost a race as it did with Iris’s Gifts in the 2003 World Hurdle. “We went too quickly. But I learned my lesson and in 2004 we went a little bit slower and we raised the pace late on. It was the difference between winning and losing. And every couple of years you win a race that you don’t expect to. Bobs Worth at the Gold Cup last year didn’t look like a likely winner for a long time but came good in the end.”

Five years ago, Geraghty finished a distant seventh on Barbers Shop in the Gold Cup but still ended the day celebrating after his now wife, Paula, accepted his marriage proposal.

Geraghty had planned to take her to Paris so he could pop the question in the shadow of the Eiffel Tower.

“But as the week went on, I thought, if I took her to Paris for a weekend, that would be a little bit obvious,” he says. “I was trying to catch her by surprise. So, after defying odds of 33-1 on Punjabi to win my first Champion Hurdle, I decided I would propose in the weighing room on the Friday evening.”

The build-up to this year’s Festival has been overshadowed by allegations that banned susbstances, including anabolic steroids, have been found at the yard of Philip Fenton, who is training the third favourite for the Gold Cup, Last Instalment.

Fenton was charged following an investigation by Ireland’s Ministry of Agriculture and is due to appear in court on March 20.

Last week, the British Horseracing Authority carried out dope tests at the Irish trainer’s stables and they are due to announce this week whether his horses can race at Cheltenham.

“I’ve known Philip for a long time and he’s a top-class trainer, a brilliant rider,” says Geraghty. “I am very surprised to believe he would be involved in any wrongdoing. I am sure Last Instalment’s tests will come back negative. It’s very easy to say racing is in a desperate state with drugs. It’s not.”

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